The other day, I had lunch with two friends, Xiao Luo, an unmarried 27 year-old journalist who lives with her boyfriend, the other, Xiao Liu, a married 35-6 year-old designer, who lives with his wife and young daughter. The food was great. We were at one of Shenzhen’s “new concept” restaurants, this time new concept Sichuan, where Cantonese attention to detail and high-end ingredients meet Sichuanese delight in unexpected re-combinations of spice and chili. The conversation, however, was about dissatisfaction and stress. Both of my friends found their relationships to be unsatisfactory and stressful.

Xiao Luo struggles with insecurity in her relationship: “没有安全感” while Xiao Liu chafes under familial obligations: “压力很大”. Both attribute the problems in their relationship to gendered expectations of what a man should be. For Xiao Luo, the question is what a man should provide his partner. Materially, he should provide a home and reliable income; Xiao Liu agrees. However, he believes his wife’s expectations cannot be met. Xiao Luo said that she could understand his wife’s feeling of insecurity: you need money to send a child to kindergarten to prepare her to go to a good university abroad. Everyone knows how the cost of living is going up.

Xiao Luo also expects her boyfriend to spend quality time with her—eating meals together, going shopping together, talking about the day, and watching television . Again, Xiao Liu doesn’t disagree. However, he experiences his wife’s demands for companionship to be excessive, limiting the time he could be spending at work, with friends, and cultivating himself. Indeed, the problem is that if he were to meet his work and familial obligations, he would have little time left over for friends and self-cultivation.

In Shenzhen, successful and ambitious men are busy: they work long hours and are available to bosses and friends 24-7. These men will often go from one dinner with friends to another, or play mah johng all night. Others, like Xiao Liu have hobbies that are in fact second jobs. Xiao Liu makes documentary films in his limited spare time. Consequently, not going home is a source of friction in many relationships as wives, girlfriends, and children are last on many men’s list of priorities.

Another friend summarized Shenzhen’s relationship tension as the result of too many temptations. No one, she said, wants to stay quietly at home. Both men and women want exciting lives. The expression 男人花心，女人花钱 (men spend their hearts, women spend money) succinctly expresses what many say characterizes Shenzhen relationships. Men have many relationships and women spend as much money as they can. The problem with work and friends, however, is that women can’t complain if their boyfriends and husbands don’t come home. Work and friends are a man’s priorities. Xiao Luo agrees.

In this case, wouldn’t the best decision be not to have children? My friend immediately corrected me: all Chinese people want children. So what to do? She sighed. “In the end, the woman bears all the responsibility for taking care of the family. The men just want to wake up one day and have an eighteen year old son.” Again, why, I asked, not seeing the implicit value of children. If you don’t want to raise the child, why bother having it? My friend ignored my deliberate pig-headedness. That children are good and desired goes without saying. Instead she pointed out that what needs to be explained is why, I, who can have as many children as I want, don’t have any. I nodded meekly and followed her into the movie theater. Hancock is playing this week.